George Nathaniel Curzon, Marquess Curzon

Lord CurzonBBC Hulton Picture Library

George Nathaniel Curzon, Marquess Curzon, also called (1898–1911) Baron Curzon of Kedleston, or (1911–21) Earl Curzon of Kedleston
(born Jan. 11, 1859, Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, Eng.—died March 20, 1925, London), British statesman, viceroy of India (1898–1905), and foreign secretary (1919–24), who during his terms in office played a major role in British policy-making.

Early life

Curzon was the eldest son of the 4th Baron Scarsdale, rector of Kedleston, Derbyshire. His early development was strongly influenced by the benign neglect of his parents and the dominating character of his governess (whom he termed “a brutal and vindictive tyrant”) and of his first preparatory schoolmaster (a firm believer in corporal punishment). At Eton, where he proved a wayward and emotional pupil, he clashed with his tutors but developed an extraordinary gift for assimilating the contents of books; by studying hard in private, he surprised everyone by winning more prizes (for French, Italian, and history, among other subjects) than had ever been carried off before.

Just before entering Oxford in 1878, he was struck down by a devastating pain in his back, the aftermath of a riding accident of four years previous. He refused to accept medical advice to rest and instead donned a leather harness, which he wore for the rest of his life. The back pain was to plague him from that time on, robbing him of sleep, forcing him to take drugs, and often making him querulous and unbalanced at some of the most vital moments in his career and in the affairs of the British Empire. It should be added that the pain sharpened his mind and never kept him from achieving remarkable feats of physical and mental endurance.

Curzon was elected president of the Oxford Union in 1880 and made a fellow of All Souls College in 1883. He had a gift for making friends in high places, and this was apt to be resented by his contemporaries. About this time a verse was circulated at Oxford of which he was to write later: “Never has more harm been done to one single individual than that accursed doggerel has done to me.” It went as follows:

My name is George Nathaniel Curzon,

I am a most superior person,

My cheek is pink, my hair is sleek,

I dine at Blenheim once a week.

(Blenheim is the residence of the dukes of Marlborough.) Two years later he was dining even more frequently at Hatfield House, ancestral home of Lord Salisbury, Conservative leader in the House of Lords, for whom he was now doing research and drafting speeches. His reward was Salisbury’s recommendation of Curzon to the Tories of Southport, Lancashire, who agreed to adopt him as their candidate at the next election. It was a safe Tory seat, and in 1886 Curzon became a member of Parliament for the first time. With Salisbury’s approval he neglected his parliamentary duties to embark on a world tour and came back infatuated with Asia. From this and subsequent journeys emerged three books: Russia in Central Asia (1889); Persia and the Persian Question (1892), by far the most successful of his works; and Problems of the Far East (1894).

Rise to political eminence

On Nov. 10, 1891, Curzon took his first step up the political ladder by accepting Salisbury’s invitation to become under secretary of state for India in the Tory government. The financial worries that beset him at the time (for he had developed extravagant tastes) were solved when he married Mary Victoria Leiter, daughter of Adolphus (Levi) Leiter, a Chicago millionaire. The marriage took place in Washington, D.C., on April 22, 1895, and the union involved marriage settlements of several millions of dollars. There was also a present from Lord Salisbury: the newly married couple returned from their honeymoon to find him waiting with an offer to Curzon of the job of under secretary of state, Salisbury having just been appointed foreign secretary. Curzon accepted on the condition that he was also to be made a privy councillor, and on June 29, 1895, he was duly sworn in by Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle. From this moment his rise to political eminence was swift.

In 1898 it was announced that he would succeed Lord Elgin as viceroy of India, and, in September of that year, he was created Baron Curzon of Kedleston. He was the youngest viceroy of India in history, and he cherished the prospect of it, for it was an office filled with the pomp and ceremony he loved. India was the most treasured jewel in Queen Victoria’s crown, and, after the pageantry of his arrival in Calcutta on Jan. 3, 1899, Curzon wrote: “I suddenly saw what had come into my hands, and what prodigies of energy and inspiration would be needed on my part to guide them.” He demanded obedience and a bent knee from the rajas, maharajas, and provincial governors he now ruled, but there was no doubt of his sense of mission toward the Indian people. He initiated commissions of inquiry into education, police, and civil services; he reduced taxes; he ordered immediate punishment of any Briton (including members of the army) who ill-treated Indian nationals. In external affairs he paid special attention to India’s frontiers, toured the Persian Gulf, and sent a successful mission to Tibet to frustrate Russian ambitions there. On his return from what he called a “triumphal” tour of the Indian provinces, he ordered the restoration of the Tāj Mahal, which was decaying, and thereafter took a personal interest in India’s artistic and cultural heritage.

At the end of his first five years in India, his successes were recognized by the government at home by a renewal of his term; but, in fact, the period of blazing glory was over and now came political tragedy. At Curzon’s personal request, the job of commander in chief of the Indian army and military member of the viceroy’s Cabinet had been given to England’s military hero of the day, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum. Curzon believed that to have such an illustrious soldier on his staff would embellish his own image, though his friends in England warned him repeatedly that Kitchener was, in Lord Esher’s words, “an uncouth and ruthless man.” It was a clash of personalities, and the two were soon unscrupulously intriguing against each other. A final confrontation between the two men, which ended in Curzon’s bursting into tears, brought matters to a climax. Curzon, confident that the government would take his part, cabled that either his views must be accepted or he would go. On the morning of Aug. 16, 1905, he received a cable from King Edward VII telling him that his resignation had been accepted. He delayed his return to England; and, by the time he was once again in London, the Tories were out of office, and his Indian achievements had been forgotten. He was not even given the earldom usually awarded to retiring viceroys.

In the period of political eclipse that followed, he became an excellent and enlightened chancellor of the University of Oxford and filled many other important offices. But his temporary retirement from politics was marred by the death of his beloved wife, Mary. Her death affected him deeply, but the money that now came to him enabled him to indulge in his passion for the collection of art treasures and old buildings. In 1911 he bought his first castle, Tattershall, in Lincolnshire, which he restored; and later he did the same to Bodiam Castle, Sussex, eventually presenting both of them to the nation.

His political ambitions had been damped down but never extinguished, and his hopes were stirred anew in 1911. In that year, after the coronation of King George V, Curzon received an earldom, along with the viscountcy of Scarsdale and the barony of Ravensdale. He showed his gratitude to the Tories who had elevated him by persuading his fellow peers (against his own and their feelings) to abstain from voting against the Parliament Bill, which curtailed their powers, thus avoiding a constitutional crisis the government had feared. He joined the coalition Cabinet of H.H. Asquith in the summer of 1915, and, when Lloyd George took over that December, he became leader of the House of Lords with the office of lord president. From then on Curzon was one of the members of the inner Cabinet concerned with the policies and pursuits of World War I.

There had been a time when all fashionable London imagined that Curzon would marry the flamboyant redheaded novelist Elinor Glyn, but to everyone’s surprise—not least that of Glyn—he announced his engagement in December 1916 to Mrs. Alfred (Grace) Duggan, widow of a rich Argentinian rancher and daughter of J. Monroe Hinds, an American diplomat. They were married on Jan. 2, 1917. His first wife had given Curzon three daughters. He hoped that his second would produce the son to inherit his title, and for both of them the years ahead were filled with hopes and disappointments.

Last years

There were disappointments in politics, too. Curzon had decided that the one lesson he must learn from his bitter experience in India was: never to resign. But in his case, it was a poor one. In the postwar government led by Lloyd George, he was appointed foreign secretary, a position for which he was eminently fitted. But time and again he was overruled or pushed aside by his boisterous leader, and his carefully planned policies thwarted. It was a time when resignation might well have gained him the overwhelming support of the Tories (who despised the Liberal coalition leader, Lloyd George) and taken him to the top. Instead he clung to office, and it was not until Tories took over in 1922 that he came into possession of the full powers of his office. He served with distinction until 1923, painstakingly dealing with the chaotic problems of postwar Europe and the Near East. When the Tory prime minister Bonar Law, a dying man, prepared to relinquish office, Curzon had good reason to believe that his efforts would be rewarded by the premiership that he felt he so richly deserved. It was not to be. Backstairs political intrigue (and the fear that a premier in the House of Lords would be “out of touch”) resulted in the appointment of a House of Commons man, Stanley Baldwin, as prime minister.

It was a bitter blow to Curzon’s hopes, but he insisted on presiding at the meeting at which Baldwin was elected to the job for which he was so much better equipped. He hung on to his job as foreign secretary until 1924, when Baldwin replaced him with Austen Chamberlain.

He had been created a marquess in 1921, and more than ever he hoped for a son to inherit his title, but in this, too, he was to be frustrated. On March 9, 1925, he was operated on for an internal condition, and he died of complications less than two weeks later. With him died his marquessate and his earldom. The viscountcy subsequently passed to his nephew and the barony of Ravensdale to his eldest daughter, Lady Irene Curzon.